With Love to Iran From LA (via London)

IranWire has published a series of yoga exercises with Mia Togo, a renowned teacher based in London and Los Angeles, designed specifically for women in Iran who are either incarcerated or practice in small spaces.

In an interview, Mia Togo, 57, shared her 30-year experience of practicing yoga, explaining that “this practice of union and wholeness” can bring a sense of wellbeing to those who find themselves confined in prison cells.

She expressed hope that her videos can help Iranians experiencing trauma to “disrupt the patterns that create pain and harm.”

Practicing Yoga can be “a moment to pause, feel and know that there might be something different underneath that noise; to drop into your body; to drop into your heart; to drop into that deep well of wisdom that is inside of you.”

According to Mia Togo, her videos can help those who “feel stuck or incarcerated, literally  and metaphorically,” to reclaim their “inner freedom.” 

“Even if it's for five or 10 minutes that you feel the connection to your own body, your own liberation, that you are freeing yourself from the thoughts that are being somewhat even brainwashed at times so that you can choose,” she says. “I know that I give myself some space to feel the pain that I'm feeling and know that somewhere inside of me there is another way. I may not be able to see it right now, but when I can feel the wisdom of my body, I take and reclaim that agency. You do not have that power over me, you do not take away my joy, you do not take away my inner freedom. Nobody can take that away from you.”

Mia Togo said that when she started practicing yoga, she “felt the mental and the emotional grounding that it offered.”

“I think what I know now is that transformation, deep systemic transformation, is through your body. It is not away from it. And I think women…are so taught and conditioned to separate from our bodies, to control our bodies, to be for somebody else or to look at all the things. And yoga is like, no, reclaim that sovereignty of really owning that landscape.”

Yoga helped Mia Togo change “the internalized system of oppression” inside her, which in turn allowed her to accept “all the messy, funky, wacky, whatever you want to call it that I think so many of us learn to sequester to be in the box or somebody else” and to “no longer oppress myself because of somebody else's judgments, beliefs or opinions.”

“Acceptance of acceptance of who I am, full stop. I'm messy, I'm imperfect…I've made mistakes. I've gotten it wrong,” she said. “And I'm like, that's that's how you learn. And so we're so taught to get it right, be perfect, fit in the box. And I was like, no, I am not going to fit. So yoga helped me get outside of that box and to make mistakes and get it wrong, because that's how you get the wisdom.”

Breathing

Sit down and move with your breaths smoothly and rhythmically in order to connect to sense the signals that your body sends you.

 

Seated Position

These simple seated positions can help you tune into the wisdom of your body.

 

Cat Cow, Hamstring, Plank, Downward Facing Dog

Stretch using the cat cow, hamstring, plank, downward facing dog positions.

 

Fire, Sun Salutations

As you move doing the Sun and Fire Salutations, you will build heat and fire that will help you transmute your challenges into your own gold.

 

Standing Poses, Tree Pose, Warrior 2, Mountain Pose

Take a few moments and feel the ground underneath your feet using the tree, warrior 2 and mountain poses.

 

Standing Pose, Wide Leg Pose, Warrior Poses

These positions – a standing pose, wide leg pose and Warrior poses – will bring voice to your inner world and make you conscious.

 

Twisting Sequence

Challenge your body with some simple and more complex twists.

 

Hands and Knees, Core Arm Plank, Side Plank, Child Pose

This sequence will show you how to strengthen your body while remaining in a static position.

 

Camel Pose and Bridge

Pump up your energy and strength by bending back into the camel and bridge poses.